[Books] WoT: A Memory of Light - All aboard the hype train!

So we have seen some teasers thanks to Tor Books, both the prologue and first chapter were made available a couple of months, the former as an e-book and the latter on Dragonmount, while the second chapter can be bought as an audio book sample. Suffice to say, it's far and away one of the few books I have ever truly been excited about reading, haven't had this much anticipation since the last Harry Potter book came out. With just over a month until the release of the final chapter in The Wheel of Time series, completed by Brandon Sanderson, I think it's time to start talking about it.

For those who have read the samples, no spoilers for those who haven't, but until then, all aboard the hype train! Feel free to discuss your theories on the events that will complete the Wheel of Time saga, a series 23 years in the making.

I believe one revelation will be a resolving of the dream Rand had near the end of Towers of Midnight, where Lanfear was calling for his help. I think he will save her and kill Moridin with the True Power in the process. Together they will defeat the Dark One and seal his prison forever, since naturally Lanfear is one of the people who originally discovered how to open the Bore in the first place. So many suggest Rand will die in order to defeat the Dark One, but I believe that out of all the Prophecies of the Dragon, that is the only false one. Their battle has happened a thousand times over since the Wheel of Time started turning, and their battle will finally end with the light being victorious.

I think that Rand and Moridin will somehow swap bodies since they are connected mentally right now because of their use of the True Power Balefire. And Alivia will complete the prophecy where she "helps Rand die" by killing the body of Rand, which is being occupied in mind by Moridin. Then Rand will join a circle with Elayne, Avienda and Nynaeve and wield Callendor to seal the Bore with the True Power. As soon as the Bore is sealed away from the World, the True Power will fade from Rand and then he chooses to disappear from the world and live in a quiet happy peaceful part of the world with Min, Avienda and Elayne will visit him via Traveling, but everyone else will be lead to believe he is dead when his body (that had Moridin's mind) is honored in Caemlyn in a tomb fit for a king.

I honestly think that Moridin and Rand are going to team up and beat the Dark One. i also think that Rand purposely "stacked the deck against himself" by visiting the white tower. he has literally let Egweyne bring all the world leaders to one spot for him.

other than that. i don't know. i just don't know. but i can tell you this: i am EXCITED, i can hardly wait.

For Marcelos, the thing with what Rand is planning is that it make's sense. So far in Towers everyone who really thought about the issue, really thought, came to that conclution.
The seal that existed didn't work. Patching something that didn't work in the first place will if anything be weaker than the first one. So the only option is a completly new one, and for that you need a clean base.
You don't build a new house ontop of the rubble of a collapsed one, you clear away the rubble first.

I believe most will see this, the reason they react as they do is fear and not thinking the issue through truly (And plot mechanics).

Personally I also far more intresed in the up to - and after, the final confrontation, and the confrontation itself.

As a tangetal note, I am extremly disapointed with the timeline of the series, in hindsight and after a very recent reread (finnishing it up right now). Since everything from book one having happend in around two years.
For one, it doesn't make sense.
Secondly, it make's everything extremly improbable, mostly character development among some important characters, Egwene as an example. And most so with others acceptance of her.
Thirdly, it make's the world seem far to small, even without Travelling. Something that cheapense the scope of it all extreme amounts.

Everything would work a lot better had it for exampe had a timespan of 5-8 years (even more so with amount of pages, on relativly few characters) instead of the 2 we have. I believe it'd feel far more satisfying.

Ameri, I ask to see a definetive statement that has that info.
Since everytime I read things about how long it's been since they started in the last books it's never been that long. I finnished rereading them today and read them on and off above five times. So please, show me since it'd please me greatly to be wrong.

While there has been no official statement by either Robert Jordan or Branden Sanderson, many fansites have been able to create a timeline of events through the books based on chronology of events and time intervals mentioned within the books. TEotW and tGH take up over a year on their own due to the 6 month gap in the middle of the Great hunt. Also, though I might be wrong on this, I believe that in LoC one (Mat or Rand) of them mentioned that they had been gone from Emond's Field for almost 2 years at that point.

Found a timeline... Can't remember on what page. Sevenspokes or something.
It only goes up to GS. So Towers ins't in it.
But that one is only over three years. And if I don't missremember one of the main characters mentions in some book after Winter's Heart that it hardly feels like it's only been two years.

I just feel it would give the whole series far more legetimacy, and some characters a great deal more of it. If the timeline wasn't that compressed. The first three books had it great. It should have kept being like that. Two years per threeish books. With army movement, seiges, politica play etc, and all what's happened. Doubt it would change much of what actually has taken place.

Yeah, I completely agree that the timeline feels compressed and rushed considering that essentially the main part of the story with Rand only spans just over a year and a half to two years over eleven books, that's on average a book comprising of every two months of the timeline. If they had spread the time out a bit longer it would have felt more real I feel.

Still, when the timeline is probably one of the biggest complaints I have of a book, its hard to complain about much :P

Pretty sure by the end of the series, the span will be about 4 years time. Rand is still much an innocent young man for the first couple of books, he really started to mature and take hold of what his true destiny is in The Great Hunt, and at that point we started seeing him mature in certain ways, but still had that boyish level of maturity at times. He starts to shape himself as the series progresses, his mastering of the sword and his ability to learn to channel as well as defeat his enemies, made him a more mature character, but he still had all that anger and tenseness from The Great Hunt up until The Gathering Storm when his true destiny becomes a bit more clear to him, as well as who he truly is. I think ultimately Rand will do something that we won't expect and it will have a major impact on the world, his destiny lies at the final battle but there are so many things to deal with first.

My concern right now happens to be for the Black Tower, and I have already read the prologue and chapter 1 so I have an idea of what is possible, I just hope that Rand deals with it before it's too late, lest his efforts at the Last Battle be in absolute vain. Mind you, there are only a couple of men living that could be worthy adversaries that can channel, and those are Moridin, Demandred and Mazrim Taim, though Logain is more supportive of Rand then Taim is, not to mention far more trust worthy. I doubt any of the other men in the Black Tower would survive a confrontation with Rand though.

Definitely the Black Tower will be a very key part of the early stages of the book as well as the Seanchan will be of major importance as can be seen in the preview of the chapter with Mat in it where he finds out that someone is trying to assassinate Tuon. But yes, only Taim has ever been mentioned in the books to have close to equal Rand in power.

I am interested in finding out what is going to happen with Demandred as he is so far the last true wild card in the series as there currently is no true facts about his plans or situation in the series so far. Especially as he is the one that hates Lew Therin Telamon the most of all the Forsaken and one of the strongest channelers ever (behind Ishmael/Moridin and Lews Telamon)

Everything would work a lot better had it for exampe had a timespan of 5-8 years (even more so with amount of pages, on relativly few characters) instead of the 2 we have. I believe it'd feel far more satisfying.

The time distance between the first 3 books is pretty large comparitiave to the rest of the series. Book 10 is over something like 10 days *cough* worst book *cough*. I was sure that the series had been over more than 3 years so far as the first three books are over the best part of 2 years. And yeah travelling does make the series a lot shorter (time wise), the whole not having to travel for 6 months to get anywhere.

To the OP, I don't think it will be Lanfear that helps Rand defeat the Dark One. It seems more likely that it will be Moiraine and Nynaeve who are linked to rand whilst he uses Calandor. As for whether Rand will die, it seems plausible that he will die and be reborn. Morridin/Ishy/Elan, whatever you want to call him is still "linked" to Rand from when they tried to balefire each other. It seems like if one dies the other one would too, so if they had to fight each other, both of them would lose regardless of the outcome. Don't remember the character's name, but pretty sure she was a seanchan channeler, who was going to "help rand die" or some such, but there were 2 people. It could be referring to Ishmael, who has changed his mind and decided everything isn't pointless and the last battle wont come infinately.

Originally Posted by Ameri

But yes, only Taim has ever been mentioned in the books to have close to equal Rand in power.

Idk, whilst that may be so in terms of raw capacity of the one power, Rand seems to have grown infinitely stronger in the last book and I think his precision with the power would allow him to destroy Taim. Rand isn't even used much as a character because of how ludicrously powerful he is now. (haven't read the released chapters yet, because I want to wait for the book )

Definitely the Black Tower will be a very key part of the early stages of the book as well as the Seanchan will be of major importance as can be seen in the preview of the chapter with Mat in it where he finds out that someone is trying to assassinate Tuon. But yes, only Taim has ever been mentioned in the books to have close to equal Rand in power.

I am interested in finding out what is going to happen with Demandred as he is so far the last true wild card in the series as there currently is no true facts about his plans or situation in the series so far. Especially as he is the one that hates Lew Therin Telamon the most of all the Forsaken and one of the strongest channelers ever (behind Ishmael/Moridin and Lews Telamon)

Did I miss something or did Demandred only show up twice in the entire series?

If a video game developer removed tumors from players, they'd whine about nerfing their loss in weight and access to radiation powers. -Cracked.com

So far, though Demandred is known to use proxies meaning that while he might not physically be there is could be in charge of many places at once. He has also stated that his rule is secure and he is amassing armies currently so we will see how that turns out in the last battle.

I am definitely looking forward to the series finally ending. After 20 years, it will finally have a conclusion. And honestly, the reason why it feels like it should be longer than about 4 years due to the size of the books, is because both Jordan and Sanderson take over a page to describe a room, with a chair taking a paragraph, and the wall taking 1-2 paragraphs as well. And each person gets described in detail in rather long paragraphs of their own. If a table didn't take a paragraph to describe, the books would be about 300 pages at the most, instead of the 600-1000 page monsters that they are.

I look farward to seeing what happens with Thom, Mat, Perrin, Lan, and Nynaeve. And kinda Aviendha and Siuane. Rand, Elayne, and Egwene I couldn't give two shits about. They were fine in the beginning, but in a way they became like Bella Swan and Edward Cullen of Twilight. So I typically skim through the parts with those 3.

Did I miss something or did Demandred only show up twice in the entire series?

No, I think he appears about 4 or 5 times in the series, at various points. He has a couple of scenes which involve Moridin, one includes Slayer, as well as a couple of scenes with the other Chosen. His duties are very vague, he doesn't even speak much of what he does and his instructions during his conversation with the Dark One at Shayol Ghul in themselves, are very vague. During the War of Power, Demandred was one of the best generals alive and there is much speculation that he is secretly one of the major military leaders alive during the Third Age. His appearance in the books has never left much for description, he is the most vague of all characters and it is still unknown whether he truly is a prime villain or not. We all know much of Moridin's intentions, however Demandred has his own goals and wants to kill Lews Therin reborn himself, which could in essence ultimately create conflict between him and Moridin, there always seems to be some form of tension between both characters when they are written about together.

At the end of it all, there are far too many possibilities, far too many allegiances are not solidified and Rand's true power has not been fully realized as of yet I don't think. Rand has done many great things over the course of time, things that were once deemed impossible and he could do another impossible and defeat the greatest threat to time itself.

Haven't read some of the posts, just in case of spoilers or really accurate speculation, but I'm looking forward to it. Less than a month to go. I might try re-reading the last two books before it comes out. Mostly just posting here so that it is easier to find this thread again once the book comes out.